Monday, December 24, 2012

Wings of Destiny - Events

This post is one of our series of tips for Wings of Destiny, a 2.5D MMO. It is free to play, with optional features and conveniences you can purchase with money.

In this post, we will talk about various Events. For a list of our posts, click here.

General Tips

The events are typically the same amount of work no matter how many teammates you have, and you can generally go solo if you really want, but there's often no point in going solo.

If you can go solo and you can't find enough teammates, you might as well bring in one of your alternate accounts and leave them idle while one account completes the event. Even if someone does absolutely nothing, if the event is successfully completed, they still get one of the Instance Rewards.

The highest-levelled teammate determines the level of the event. For example, if the highest-levelled teammate is Level 60 in The Demon Dilemma, the salamanders in that event will be level 60 even if the other teammates are level 30 (the minimum required to participate in any Event). This can be a big problem. The treasure will also be level 60 gear, however.

In all Events, you can enter and exit without trying to complete it, and still be awarded Daily Activity Points.

If the monsters are of a level much higher than your own (over 10 levels), you receive no Experience points.

Alchemist's Request (open any time)

Some people believe that doing the larger potion sizes gives a better chance of a better reward, but this does not appear to be the case. If you really want to test it, you could do a few Medium or Large potions and let the Instance Reward timer run out, whereupon all prizes are revealed.

Typically the Alchemist's Request will have at least 2 blueprint material rewards, but often at least one of them is of a type that can be gotten elsewhere. Try to get a full team of 5 because all non-material-reward prizes are just bags of coin.

To reduce frustration, try to have a full five-team although typically there is typically enough time for one character of the same level as the Instance to complete it solo at Small Potion size without using elixirs.

Anyone who can enter the event can join the team, even if their level is grossly lower. The creatures and rewards are based on the highest-level member.

If you are going solo, you can avoid using potions or elixirs by idling a while to get health and mana back. If you have weak team members who happen to be Priests, they can help without fighting by just healing you.

If you are only level 30-45, you may need potions or elixirs to do this event solo.

Characters who are disconnected from the game, even if they were not kicked from the team, do not draw a reward unless they reconnect before the event is concluded. The event is concluded by properly fulfilling the kill requirements and talking to the NPC inside (Frey).

If you are working on blueprints, you will need certain materials that can ONLY be gotten from this event. For example, if you are working on Level 40 blueprints, you may need a Blade of Missed Chance, Source of Pestilence, Pestilence Blood, or Twisted Soul.

Once you are level 50, it will be IMPOSSIBLE to get any of those if you are in the team because the rewards will be selected from level 50 materials, and those are level 40 materials.

You can either get someone else to find them and trade for them, or buy them in auction (typically at outrageous prices), or make an alternate account that isn't level 50 yet and go on an Alchemist Reward mission.

You can also level-hold -- Stop trying to gain experience points and slow your advance to Level 50 long enough for you to get the critical materials.

Another way to get them is to join an event already in progress: For example, suppose you are level 60 and need level 40 materials (e.g., a Source of Pestilence) from the Alchemist's Request to finish an old blueprint.

First, you need to make a level 40's Alchemist Request event by having a team with at least 1 character of level 40-49, and no other characters of a higher level. If no one is willing to cooperate, you could make an alternate character of the appropriate level and enter the event as a team of one. Once inside, start the event by talking to the NPC there.

Once the event is started, have the team leader issue an Invitation to your level 50 character. You can be accepted to the team, but will still be outside the event.

Have your character enter the event by going to the Alchemist's Assistant in Forrester City, and entering via dialogue. You will now be in the event.

Although you are level 50, the creatures you have to kill will be based on the event already created, and the rewards will also be based on the event already created.

You can additionally use this method to help lower-level characters speed through the event.

If you do this event solo, you can exit the event and re-enter, and the creature count will accumulate from the last time you were there. However, each time you enter counts against the two times you can do this event each server day.

In addition to the Alchemist's Request, you can get blueprint materials from:

Dungeons

The Guild Dungeon: A random quest from a Guild Admin. You receive 1 material based on your character level IF you clear the dungeon before the time runs out.

The Dealiest Hunt daily quest from the Guard Captain in Forrester. However, all materials are Bound and won't stack with unbound materials from elsewhere. Save the prize boxes to be opened when you are ready to complete a blueprint, and use the bound materials first (by moving excess unbound items to warehouse, or in the worst case mailing them to yourself as temporary storage, so they won't get picked up by the blueprint).

Auction House, typically at outrageous prices, especially if the material is only obtainable from the Alchemist's Request.

Trading directly with other players, especially guildmates. Barter is typically better than going through the Auction House, but harder to arrange.

Using Cash and the "Craft All" button on your blueprint.

Arena (server time 1230h and 2200h)

Whenever possible, do the maximum allowed (5) matches every day because, win or lose, you get Battle Points.

For Team Arena, you can enter solo. The process is basically the same: Create a team (e.g., of just yourself), then go back to the Arena interface and click "Register". You have to Register every bout.

On Sundays there is no Arena, but you can still do Practice Arena three times for Daily Activity Points (no Battle Points, however).

Deathmatch (server time 1130h and 2000h)

Whenever possible, do at least 5 matches not just to get Daily Activity points, but for the literally hundreds of Battle Points you get for free if you can participate in 5 matches.

Be helpful and do more (even if you lose) to help others get their "Daily 5" since you will probably end up begging for help yourself one day.

In the worst case, have some alternate accounts join. Which Deathmatch Stage a character is in depends on weekly participation and not on actual fighting ability, so an alternate account solely to help fill Deathmatches does not actually need to be developed beyond the minimum level to participate.

There is very little reason not to participate every day, but if you start skipping, you will eventually slide down in Stage.

If you are too diligent, you will move up and encounter too-strong enemies before you are ready. Even so, the free Battle Points you get for doing 5 a day make any participation worthwhile.

The Demon Dilemma (server time 0900h and 2110h)

The Demon Dilemma is just a grind where you fight lizards, then a demon boss. You do not have to kill all the lizards to get the boss to appear, but you must kill everything to "succeed" and be awarded a prize.

Although the prizes list only gems, that is a random prize for succeeding at the instance. Most of the time you get blue-rank gear or bags of coin. Overall, for just the mere chance of getting a gem, this is a lousy event. You can get gems more conveniently through the Lucky Roulette or the Auction House.

Go with the
highest-levelled team that will accept you. As characters near level
50, typically their gear and resources will be such that they can breeze
through this event quickly and you really need to just stay alive and keep away from the salamanders . (If you are a Priest of any level, you can help by staying in the rear away from the monsters, and healing the front-line attackers).

Guild Dungeon (Guild Admin quest only)

Sometimes
you will be asked to kill Skeletons in the Guild Dungeon by the Guild
Admin. If you really, really, don't want to do this, you can Abandon the
quest by clicking on the magnifying glass to look at the details, then
clicking "Abandon". If you do this, you lose one of the limited number
of daily guild quests available to you.

If you are unable to
kill all 30 skeletons before the timer runs out, you fail the Instance
(you won't get a reward, which is typically a blueprint material, bag of
gold, or in rare cases, Guild Supplies), but you can re-enter the
dungeon and kill more skeletons until you reach the 30 kills you need.
You can then exit and talk to the Guild Admin to successfully complete
the Guild Quest.

Hot Springs (server time 1300h and 2130h)

Also known as Lands of Purity or "LOP". When you are in a "seance"
(paired up by clicking on someone and "inviting" them to a "seance")
your EXP and Coins gained per unit time doubles. You need to be a STAR5
or higher member to have a seance with toons of the same sex.

While in Hot Springs, because it is typically a very well attended event, you may want to announce requests for items or barter.

Also, this is often an idle time, so either announce to your guild
you are going "AFK" (away from keyboard) and set your toon to always
accept invitations (to seance), or work on your character (e.g., soul
draws, card and gem configurations), or shop in the auction house.

This is also a great time to have an alternate account run around
the map harvesting materials since most people will be in the Lands of
Purity.

If you are willing to give up the free EXP and Coins, this is also a
fairly good time to run Carts for your guild. Even so, try to arrange
an escort.

Recover the Wings (server time 1300h and 1910h)

The idea in Wings is to kill the Demon Slaves before they transform into Angels. And honestly, you'd be surprised how many people don't know this and hold back on area of effect attacks for fear of drawing too many attackers.

Demon Slaves don't fight back and clump tightly enough that in general Mages can hit them all with their wide area of effect spell. If you can do this quickly enough, and none of the Slaves turn into Angels, you only have to gang up and fight the demon boss at the end.

Wings is necessary to get certain blueprints. Only a few blueprints are obtainable at the Elite level of dungeons. The rest must be gotten through direct barter with other players, purchase in the Auction House, or through Wings.

You may want, early on, to ask the team to barter prints with you if you draw them. Otherwise people may simply leave immediately after the event.

Wings is also one of the few places to get a pet (Shivra) or Guild Supplies for free. The former is typically purchased with Vouchers or Cash in the Mall; the latter is typically available only in the Mall or as a random drop from bosses on every 5th level in the Astral Trials.

Unless you need a particular level blueprint, try to go into the highest-levelled team that will accept you. As characters near level 50, typically their gear and resources will be such that they can breeze through this event quickly without any Slaves turning into Angels.

Like the Alchemist's Request, the blueprint level that drops is based on the highest-levelled character in the event at the time it is created. New team members can retroactively join by talking to the Holy Guard in Forrester City.